


Darkness In, Darkness Out

by Annalas



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-17
Updated: 2015-11-17
Packaged: 2018-05-02 02:34:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5230598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annalas/pseuds/Annalas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of all the things that Sam could have predicted that would come from the release of the Darkness, the return of his addiction to demon blood had not been one of them. The return of Lucifer, though...he probably could have called that one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Darkness In, Darkness Out

Of all the things that Sam could have predicted that would come from the release of the Darkness, the return of his addiction to demon blood had not been one of them. He had been clean for years, ever since they put Michael and Lucifer away. He thought he was over it. It's true, though; addictions never fully go away. 

Addiction; that was the only way to explain why he was letting the sweet, sticky nectar invade his mouth once more. Dean wasn't here to see it, thank God. It was just him and Castiel in the warehouse, alone with the corpse of a demon. He closed his eyes and tilted the jug more, letting the blood flow past his lips. How had it come to this?

Castiel stood with his arms crossed, sullenly watching Sam drink. The angel radiated displeasure, but he knew it was necessary, just like Sam did. Of course, he was also unhappy that they were keeping this from Dean. Sam understood; keeping things from his brother generally led to a mess. This was something Dean wouldn't let him do, though, and just like researching a way to get rid of the Mark of Cain, it had to be done. 

"That should be enough," Castiel finally stated. 

Sam set the jug down, feeling the sickening fluid roil in his stomach. He was torn between passing out and getting sick all over the floor. At the same time, he felt so, incredibly powerful. Was this how Castiel felt all the time? 

"Are you feeling alright?" the angel took a step closer to Sam. He nodded, ignoring Castiel to step into the middle of the crudely drawn pentagram. "We could still call Crowley. He might--"

"We've been over this," Sam snapped. "There's no way he'd let me get anywhere near the cage. This is the only way. We _need_ to know what Lucifer knows. He has to know a way to defeat the Darkness."

"And what price are you willing to pay for that information?" Castiel's churlish reply went unanswered as Sam pulled out the script and started reading the words in Latin. 

"Per me in urbem acribus. Per me transeant in aeternam dolor. In medio populi mei perditi frequentia. Lustitiae auctor fabricae movetur. Ad extremum munus mihi numinis. Supremest Sapientia, ac primaevis Amor. Quae ante me fuerunt create neminem, nisi quae. Aeternum et aeterna sustineo. Omnes spem relinquunt, qui ingredieris huc. " 

The spell was intolerably long, but Sam could feel it working. The demon blood surged through him as the words came to life. The pentagram glowed, then burned before the circle around it turned into a column of fire. Then Sam was falling. 

He squeezed his eyes shut, gripping the paper tightly in his hand. He had to do this. It was the only way to find out how to defeat the Darkness. Right now, though, Sam would give anything to not be falling however long down to Hell. He had been to Hell before, and it hadn't been so pleasant. Given that he was going into the deepest, darkest part of Hell...he doubted it was going to be any better this time around, either. 

After what seemed like an eternity, he figured out that he was slowing down. He peeked his eyes open to encounter a solid wall of fire. What had once been orange and red flames, though, had died down to smaller blue and green flames. Then his feet hit bedrock, and the flames died out entirely. 

Sam took a deep breath, taking in the sharp taste of sulfur as he looked around. It was what he imagined being in the middle of a volcano would be. There was fire and lava (or was it magma, deep down in the earth as were?), and volcanic glass covered in ash. There, in the middle of the circular room, was the cage. 

It was literally a pit in the bedrock, covered by an inscribed metal grate. He assumed the words on it were Enochian. It was perhaps ten feet in front of him; enough room for him to be comfortable, but also enough room to mask the contents of the cage from him. He didn't need to see inside to know who was in there.

Sam took a step forward, suddenly realizing that this plan was probably sheer stupidity. Castiel's last words echoed in his head as he confronted the two beings--no, three--within the cage.

"Hey. Lucifer. Michael. We need to talk." He waited with bated breath as he waited for a response. 

"Well look-y here," Lucifer sing-sang. He was using the voice of his old vessel. Nick, was it? Sam wondered if the vessel looked as beat-up down here as it did on earth. "Sammy's come back to us, Michael. Just like a long-lost pet. He misses us!"

Sam closed his eyes, mentally counting to five in his head. He was okay. There was a large metal grate between him and Lucifer, and nothing the fallen angel could do to him at the moment. He was as safe as he was going to get, talking to his number one enemy. 

"Can it," Sam growled, daring to take another step forward. "Look, I'm gonna ask you some questions, and you're going to answer. _Honestly_. The um..." He took another breath to calm himself. "The Darkness is back."

Silence. He had expected an outburst of some kind, a quip from Lucifer. There was nothing, however, except a bit of rustling from the cage below. When one of them spoke, it was Adam's voice that Sam heard. Michael, then. 

"What happened to the Mark of Cain?" Michael's voice was sharp, rebuking. "It should have stopped--"

"Michael, Michael, Michael," Lucifer cut him off. "These are the _Winchesters_. They probably got rid of the Mark because Cain looked at them wrong. They're sensitive like that."

"And now they've unleashed the Darkness," Michael seethed. Sam stood there, hands in his pockets as he waited for the two angels to answer him. "Did you even bother to wonder _why_ the Mark of Cain exists? Or what would happen if you removed it?"

"Look," Sam sighed petulantly. "We can argue about this all day, or you can tell me how to trap the Darkness again."

There was a moment of hushed whispers coming out of the cage. Sam stepped forward, trying to listen in. Gravel crunched below his feet, skittering into the hole. The whispering duo fell silent. 

"You can't fight it," Lucifer called up to him. "But we can. Now hold on, before you start going on about how you're not gonna let us out of here. Michael and I...we've been talking, and well...we think we can put this whole apocalypse thing behind us. We'll take care of the Darkness and things'll go back to the way they were."

It sounded like a sales pitch to Sam. He raised incredulous eyebrows in the direction of the cage. He certainly wasn't about to unleash Michael and Lucifer, regardless of whether or not they could help with the Darkness. 

"Raphael can also help," Michael added in agreement.

"Yeah, except Raphael's dead. We don't have a lot going for us." Sam hesitated, wondering if he should even bother to update the two angels on the outside world. 

Michael and Lucifer were being surprisingly civil with him, and as long as their attention was on him, it was off of Adam. It didn't really hurt Sam to talk to them a little bit longer, let them know about the basic goings-on of Earth. What were they going to do, anyway? They were trapped down here. 

"Look," he sighed. "Things are a bit different now. Metatron shut down Heaven, kicked all the angels out. Now this angel named Hannah's in charge, and Metadouche is wandering around on earth...somewhere. Point is, there isn't really a garrison or anything for you guys to rely on. Even if I _did_ let you out, you'd be all alone against the Darkness."

" _Hannah's_ in charge?"   
"Metatron did _what_?"

Twins cries of protest rose from the pit. Sam could feel the angelic fury from where he stood, battering against the magical barrier. Then again, perhaps he shouldn't have told them what was going on. They'd probably take it out on Adam once he left. A small streak of guilt wormed its way through his intestines. He hadn't wanted to make things harder on his brother. 

"Let us out," Michael entreated. "We'll set things right. Seal away the Darkness. Fix Heaven."

"Fuck Heaven, what's going on with Hell?" Lucifer demanded. "Who's in charge? Abaddon? Meg?"

"Crowley," Sam replied. He couldn't help the satisfying smirk that graced his face, albeit grimly. As much as Lucifer had tormented him, letting him know that Hell had gone to shit, at least in his eyes, was a decent revenge. "And forget it; I'm not letting you guys out. Figure out another way to fight the Darkness."

He heard a dark huff from the cage. There was a shuffling sound, much like someone pacing in a small space. Sam tried to get up the courage to look down at them, but his feet refused to take him any closer. 

"Moose." The surly voice of the current king of Hell interrupted his thoughts. Sam spun around to see Crowley standing behind him. He was dressed entirely in black, as he was wont to do. 

"This area's off-limits. Solitary confinement, if you will." The demon stalked towards Sam, murder in his eyes. Huh. Maybe he _should_ have cleared this shit with Crowley before coming down here. 

"Crowley!" Lucifer's voice called up from the Pit. "How _dare_ you--?"

Crowley chuckled, taking Sam's arm and willing them both to the warehouse. The angel had the good grace to look guilty. He must have summoned Crowley to ask him to rescue Sam from the bowels of Hell. 

"As much as I _love_ riling those two up," Crowley spoke, his voice deceptively demure. "What in the blazes were you two thinking?!"

It was quite comical to watch Crowley throw a fit. His face turned beet-red as he started shouting. The man's stout stature only served to enhance the effect. Sam looked down, pursing his lips as he fought to hide a smile. Pissing off Crowley was always a highlight.

"Do you have any idea what you could have done?" he continued to explode. "What makes you think you can trust anything they say, anyway? They want _out_ , of course they're going to say whatever they think will make you set them free!"

"What did they say?" Castiel asked Sam, breaking through Crowley's rant. Sam shrugged.

"They want out, they're our only hope...pretty much what we expected." He ignored Crowley, focusing on Castiel. He was bone-tired, yet at the same time energized from the demon blood he had drank earlier. There was a small voice in his head that niggled at him, telling him to drink a little more. He wouldn't be so tired if he just drank a little more. 

"I was hoping for something...more," Castiel frowned. He began to pace the room once more. "If we had Michael's sword...even Lucifer's sword...we might be able to do something. A target is important, too."

"What am I, invisible?" Crowley seethed. "If _either_ of you or your friends comes back to Hell, to _my_ dominion, I will personally shove you in the cage with them!"

Sam watched Crowley go before turning back to Castiel. As far as he was concerned, this entire foray had been a dead end. They were no closer to striking back at the Darkness than they had been before his little escapade. 

"I'm gonna get some sleep," Sam intoned as he strode towards the door. "You can clean up the place, right?"

He didn't wait for an answer before he left, heading for the motel room he had rented for the night. He had told Dean that he was checking out a case in Bismarck. If the case were the Darkness, then he was at least being honest. For once. 

He shouldn't have been surprised to find his brother in his hotel room when he returned. Dean had gone to Fargo, North Dakota for something or other, and it wasn't that far from the Bismarck hotel Sam had holed up in. 

"It was a demon," Sam explained. He didn't bother to greet Dean. He closed the door, flipped the lock and collapsed on the nearest bed. He kicked his shoes off as an afterthought, already on his way to Dreamland. Who knew that using a spell to travel down to the depths of Hell would be so, well, exhausting?

"Yeah, we knew that," Dean agreed. He sat on the other bed, messing around with the laptop. "Where's Cas? I thought he was supposed to go with you."

"I dunno," Sam shrugged sleepily. "We killed the demon, he said he'd clean up the mess."

"Well, where at?" Dean demanded, setting his computer aside. Sam kept his eyes closed and evened out his breathing. He didn't want Dean to go to the warehouse and find evidence of their spell. Instead, he allowed Dean to think he was asleep. A few minutes later, he really was.


End file.
